Riding the MTA's Love Train

NEW YORK — An anonymous e-mail sent three weeks ago urging single New Yorkers to designate the first car of every subway train the "singles car" has sparked a grassroots movement so large that Metropolitan Transit Authority officials say they're struggling to keep up with the changing face of the agency they're charged with running.

"It's absolute bedlam," said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly. "The so-called singles cars are overflowing with people and every sexual niche, fetish or subculture has staked a claim to its own car, creating confusion and chaos."

Kelly said the MTA first began to notice crowding of the front cars on subway trains on Aug. 17, three days after many New Yorkers began receiving an anonymous e-mail from a group calling itself "Organization for Better Underground Living." The missive declared, "As of today, Wednesday, August 14, the first car of every subway train running in New York City’s five boroughs is hereby declared THE SINGLES CAR: A free zone for unattached New Yorkers to meet the commuter of their dreams."

The MTA really had a problem on its hands after an article appeared in the New York Sun on Aug. 23.

"We were as surprised by this as anybody," Kelly said. "I mean, who reads the Sun? Have you seen that thing? And they were 8 days late on the article as it were. We thought this thing had gotten as big as it was gonna get by the time they ran their little article."

Kelly said the first cars of many subway trains have become so overrun that the second car has become a de facto "singles car for people who aren't so desperate as to need to squeeze into the front car."

Of greater concern to the MTA, though, is that since publication of the Sun article, various sexual subcultures have gotten into the game, claiming other cars on the trains. For instance, the third car of every train is better known as the lesbian car, Kelly said.

"The last car of every train, appropriately enough, is the anal sex car," Kelly added.

What's more, Kelly said, some of the cars have been claimed by two groups or more. For instance, the Greater New York Association of Single Parents dubbed the fifth car of each train the "single parents car" on Monday, seemingly unaware that the North American Man-Boy Love Association had already identified the fifth car of every train as the "man-boy love" car.

"It was awful," said one single mother who asked not to be identified as she got off the A train at 14th Street. "My 12-year-old son and I boarded the fifth car of the train hoping to meet a suitable male role model. Instead, I found myself using my pepper spray to fend off four overweight middle-aged men in leather pants who assumed I was Jeffrey's pimp."

Kelly said the problem of multiple groups claiming the same car has been exacerbated by some groups only claiming a car on one or two particular subway lines.

"I stepped onto the F train last night and, without knowing it, boarded the third car, which apparently is the 'BDSM' car," said Brooklynite Adam Paulson, explaining that on the R train the third car is the "wounded in love" car. "Before I knew what was going on, a man intent on punching me out was moving toward me quickly.

"Just before he connected, I thought it was a mugging," Paulson said. "But then I came to a few minutes later and saw that I'd been tied to the handrail and that my pants were around my ankles. It took me five minutes to convince car mistress Dominique that I wasn't role playing and that I really did just want to go home.

MTA spokesman Kelly said Paulson could've had it worse.

"That guy [Paulson] could've boarded the 'Chicks with dicks' car," which is the fourth car on the F train, Kelly said.

Many subway riders, however, are not amused. Some MTA customers are already calling on the system to put things back the way they were, by randomly assigning seats to passengers.

Said Greenwich Village resident Susan Rabinowitz, "I'm beginning to pine for the days when all the cars were the 'Leave me the hell alone' car.

"For the time being, I'm just seeking out the 'I'd rather curl up with a good book than a man or woman' car and making due," she said.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)